What are we re-defining? From my vantage point, learning fuels the economy and social networks are empowering us to connect in ways that support new paradigms and possibilities. I’ve compiled a few snippets that reveal what myself and my sources may be mulling. The basic idea is that there are “other worlds” where networked learners can solve global issues and form back-up plans while earning alternate currencies.

Re-defining money

monopoly money (Photo credit: guerrillaguru)

The DYNDY project encourages us to re-consider how we deal with and create money in our present world where financial, banking, and economic crises result from faulty top-down decision-making processes that serve the few and not the many.

“We are in a situation whereby the incapacity to re-define how we deal with money could resolve in an a severe damage to society as we commonly refer to it: contrary to what happens with information systems, there are no backups with money systems.”

The movement in Egypt was said to be “very dependent on Facebook,” according to an Egyptian blogger and activist Alaa Abd El Fattah who was quoted in the Washington Post. Fueled by the anger over high food prices and high unemployment, the citizen’s communications strategy went beyond social media.

Collective Intelligence expert, Don Tapscott, wrote in HuffPo about Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s attempt to maintain a “firm grip” on the country’s media, which was ultimately lost due to the “interactive and decentralized” power of the web.

ReadWriteWeb noted that even when 90% of Egyptian internet access points were shut down by major ISPs, the coordination of “old-style” dial up connections helped maintain communications throughout the country.

A report from 2009, from KnowledgeWorks called 2020 Forecast: Creating the Future of Learning caught my attention. It identifies six major drivers of change that might unleash a wild world of learning quite unlike any system of schooling we’ve ever experienced. What I’m finding is that it’s increasingly a story-driven game that places students at the center of their learning experience, much like an MMORPG. In any case, the singularity is one narrative I imagine will drastically alter what it means to be a student interfacing with a world undergoing ecological and economic shifts.

In the section called Altered Bodies we’re reminded that neuroscientists have begun to design neuro-enhancements that might soon provide “customized learning experiences” that push the boundaries of ethics and cognitive rights. Learners are forecast to have “more and more options for modifying their minds and bodies in support of peak performance even as they navigate increasing levels of bio-distress.” I’m reminded of what H.G. Wells would say is urgently needed to prevent our own extinction, “the evolution of a new more powerful type of man.”